No intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy of these threats

Incredible.  From USPS ‘Internet Covert Operations Program’ Is ‘Much Broader in Scope Than Previously Known’ by Stacey Matthews.

Last month, Yahoo News ripped the lid off of a government surveillance program run by a division of the USPS. The program monitors, scans, and collects information on social media postings considered “inflammatory” enough to pass along to other government agencies. It includes posts promoting the coordination and planning of upcoming political demonstrations.

The program’s existence came out after the news outlet obtained a copy of a March USPS bulletin that was “distributed through the Department of Homeland Security’s fusion centers.” It warned of the possibility of violence at upcoming protests though they acknowledged they had no reliable intelligence to suggest any alleged threats were legitimate:

“Analysts with the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) monitored significant activity regarding planned protests occurring internationally and domestically on March 20, 2021,” says the March 16 government bulletin, marked as “law enforcement sensitive” and distributed through the Department of Homeland Security’s fusion centers. “Locations and times have been identified for these protests, which are being distributed online across multiple social media platforms, to include right-wing leaning Parler and Telegram accounts.”

[…]

“No intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy of these threats,” it adds.

The bulletin includes screenshots of posts about the protests from Facebook, Parler, Telegram and other social media sites. Individuals mentioned by name include one alleged Proud Boy and several others whose identifying details were included but whose posts did not appear to contain anything threatening.

USPS has created an entire division to spy on Americans and report their free speech to other security agencies.  That is by far the worst charge.  Even more galling is that while they are illegally spying, they are grossly incompetent.  The whole program is justified based on the capacity to identify threats which pose a danger to USPS workers and infrastructure, and yet:

“No intelligence is available to suggest the legitimacy of these threats,” it adds.

A lot more interesting information in the article including the USPS justification for the program.  The justification is insufficient but it does have some marginal, very marginal, plausibility.

Every agency seeks to expand its mandate.  We knew about the CDC trying to justify gun control (Second Amendment) as a public health issue.  Now we have the USPS as a domestic spy agency.

It is not mentioned in the article but an obvious conflict of interest is glaring.  USPS is losing $9.2 billion a year having had much of its business stripped away by digital communication.  Why write a letter which costs more than a dollar to mail, takes time to mail, and requires 5-10 days to get there (whether next door or across the country) when you can send an email in 12 nanoseconds without having to leave your home and for free.  

And then there is the whole DHL, Fedex, UPS, issue.

So USPS is spying on its customer base while being deeply uncompetitive at its business.  The scope for competitive abuse is staggering.  Independent of the whole spying issue.

And why am I finding this at Legal Insurrection.  Because there is no reporting at the New York Times on the story.